Governments and infrastructure investors normally default to grey infrastructure to meet infrastructure needs for coastal protection, water supply, energy and transport, as well as to increase the resilience of existing infrastructure. This happens because the cost savings and added benefits of nature-based infrastructure (NBI) options are neither well understood nor integrated into traditional assessments of infrastructure projects.
Building on the predicted outcomes of shifting investments from built infrastrusture to nature, this report aims to address how NBI performs compared to grey infrastructure and how it can bridge the infrastructure gap.
The issues addressed in the report bring together two elements of research: a literature review on infrastructure investment needs and the results from IISD’s Sustainable Asset Valuations (SAVi) of NBI projects. The research shows that NBI provides the same services, but is up to 50% cheaper than traditional infrastructure. In addition, NBI provides 28% better value for money. It also shows that an infrastructure swap could create additional benefits worth up to $489 billion every year - a figure that rivals the annual GDP of countries such as Austria, Ireland, or Nigeria.